The Economist wrote:Since taking power in 2015, PiS has set about dismantling the country’s checks and balances. It has reduced the public broadcaster to a propaganda organ, packed the civil service with loyalists and purged much of the army’s leadership. It has undermined the independence of the judiciary by stacking the Constitutional Tribunal with its cronies. In response, the European Commission warned Poland’s government last year that such changes pose “a systemic risk to the rule of law”.

On July 12th PiS stepped up its effort to subjugate the legal system to politicians’ control with two new laws. Members of the National Judicial Council, the body that chooses judges, will henceforth be selected by parliament instead of by other judges. The minister of justice can now appoint and dismiss the heads of lower courts. A third bill, if signed into law, would allow the minister to sack every member of the Supreme Court. Among other responsibilities, that court rules on the validity of elections.

[...]

Critics believe PiS simply wants to stuff them with judges who will rubber-stamp its policies. From now on, judges will owe their careers to the governing party. “It’s shockingly brazen,” says Kim Lane Scheppele, a sociologist at Princeton University who has analysed similar changes in Hungary.

Polls show that 76% of Poles oppose a politicised judiciary, as the protests in Warsaw and other cities attested. The front page of Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, a daily, pictured Mr Kaczynski and two shadows; the title read: “The three branches of government”.

[...]

The European Commission dutifully expressed concern over the new laws. There is some talk of imposing sanctions on Poland. But Mr Kaczynski has drawn lessons from Hungary, where Viktor Orban, the autocratic prime minister, has rewritten the constitution and tightened the screws on civil society with little trouble from the European Union. “Kaczynski has learned from Orban that if you change facts on the ground, the commission can’t get its head around it in time,” says Ms Scheppele. The EU has launched infringement procedures against Hungary, but the most serious sanctions, contained in Article 7 of the EU treaty, require a unanimous vote in the European Council. Poland would probably veto any effort to invoke them against Hungary, and vice versa.

Yet unlike Hungary, where Mr Orban’s party enjoys a crushing majority, Poland is politically divided. PiS won just 37.5% of the vote in 2015. Civil society remains strong, and the government responds to public pressure: last year it backed down from a strict abortion law when faced with massive protests. The independence of Poland’s judiciary may depend on how strongly Poles want to keep it.

Congratulations, Kaczynski and Orban! You two seem far more likely to stay in power than Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose unofficial referendum on rewriting the Venezuelan constitution didn't go his way this week, fueling the current general strike against his government:

Syed Barre? If I recall correctly, he was playing the US against Russia for funding, and it worked until the cold war ended, and without Soviet and/or American support, he was done for. His regime wasn't particularly terrible, at least if you ignore the genocides in the north and the nationalization policies which wrecked the economy and set the stage for the future and, ok, he was pretty bad, but when he disappeared, well, Somalia happened. He's pretty much proof that the only thing worse than the West backing a dictator is the West ceasing to back a dictator.

Well, it says he try to do good too? SO like, even the worstest dictators can sometimes be nice peoples? Who knew? But... jailing dissidents and ppls you just don't like? Seems very... worst dictator like to me. And when you remove backing from powerful dictators/man children trapped in they teens in they minds then... they throw fits, they try to beat you up in some way. So yes, removing support from dictators Can backfire I guess? Ha-ha I dunno I no political analyst.

Amy Lee wrote:Just what we all need... more lies about a world that never was and never will be.

Azula to Long Feng wrote:Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player.

Nope, SOP for every dictator, king, emperor and monarch throughout history. Murdering dissidents isn't a good thing, but that alone isn't what turns a country into a hellhole, though it does tend to be a sign of other things that do turn it into a hellhole...